


take me back to the night we met

by RedPaladins



Series: hundreds of lives, thousands of years [2]
Category: Dream SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Deity Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loneliness, Memory Loss, Not Canon Compliant, Out of Character, Realistic Minecraft, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29272047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedPaladins/pseuds/RedPaladins
Summary: Dream, and the aftermath of Tubbo launching the nukes.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs & Sapnap, Cara | CaptainPuffy & Clay | Dream, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Karl Jacobs, Clay | Dream & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs & Sapnap
Series: hundreds of lives, thousands of years [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122641
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	take me back to the night we met

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the night we met by Lord Huron, because i thought it was kinda fitting. 
> 
> i guess this is a bit confusing if you haven't read the first part of the serie, but basically all you need to know is that Dream made Technoblade kill Tommy and Tubbo launched the nukes after Tommy's death fhbkcxk
> 
> enjoy!! (also, it's out of character and there's probably a lot of inaccuracies, sorry about that)

The plan, initially, was to make Technoblade kill Tommy as a punishment for not helping him escape when he had been cornered by everyone in the discs room. It would have been a good warning, too– a way for Dream to remind the blood god and the other to not mess with him, that he still had control.   


Granted, it hadn’t been very well thought of– for once, he had acted on impulse instead of thinking about it meticulously, and it would have been fine; killing Tommy wasn’t much of a big deal, not with his ability to resurrect people. (There was once a time where killing the younger boy wasn’t something he wished to do, but the prison– oh, the prison had changed many things, even if it had been his plan to go in. And maybe if Tommy hadn’t visited has much, hadn’t asked too many questions, he would still be alive right now, but it hadn’t been the case, and he only got what he deserved.)   


Yes, it would have been fine; if only not for Tubbo, and his goddamn nukes. Of course, it would have been naive to think that Tubbo wouldn’t try anything after seeing Tommy die in front of him, and Dream had expected a little bit of rebellion, of anger, maybe, but as much as he hates to admit it, he couldn’t have guessed Tubbo would have nukes, of all weapons out there– and that he would use them as a way to get revenge, even if that meant killing everyone else as well.   
If he had known ahead of time, it wouldn’t have been a problem. He could have hid in the prison (the only untouched building in the aftermath of Tubbo’s decision) and waited a little while before going outside; but because he chose to kill Tommy without thinking about all of the alternative ways his plan could backfire on him, he hadn’t known, and now– now, everyone was dead.  


Which, again– wouldn’t have been a problem, because if he knew then he would have protected himself in time, and resurrected them all after, maybe even messing up the process intentionally so they could all have a few memory problems and not remember what happened.   
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? He didn’t know about the nukes, and now everyone was dead and there was nothing he could do about it; because as it turns out if you’re a god, there’s one chance in one hundred and seventy-seven billion that nukes falling onto you will not kill you, but instead weaken you, and erase your powers. Healing from his wounds had taken more time than it should have, and when he was back to health, his powers were gone.  


And he had tried– oh, he had tried, back then, to bring Tommy back to life– he had tried, again, and again, until flesh turned into bones and until bones started to rot; Dream had tried until there was nothing left of Tommy except used and broken bones, and he had been met with failure every single time.   
His powers are gone, just like Tommy– just like his old friends, and everything else in his world, all because of Tubbo, because Dream had been stupid enough to not consider him a threat. And it’s true, that there had been nothing for him to lose in that moment; with his friendships long gone and no one by his side, but it hadn’t been the same back then. Now, no matter what he does, he will never get them back, because they’re gone– and he has nothing left of them but a destroyed pair of goggles and ruined bandana and pirate hat. 

Now, Dream is utterly and completly alone. 

***

On contrary of popular belief, Dream does not deal well with loneliness. Before the nukes, it had been easy to deal with– he had never been truly alone, always had someone to taunt now and then– but now, being the only one left alive outside the prison, it was getting harder to deal with it. It’s nothing like the time he was in prison– it hadn't been easy, but he hadn't been really alone; there had been Sam to talk to, and sometimes Tommy. (George and Sapnap only visited once. It hadn't been a good time, and he doesn't like to remember it, to think about how it was his last memory with them.)   
There’s no one to talk to but himself, now. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Tubbo launched the nukes, and he’s not sure he wants to; sometimes it feels like years, maybe centuries, but there are times where it feels like killing Tommy was only yesterday. 

Dream finds that the aftermath of Tubbo’s decision isn’t that awful– the nuclear radiations had put a stop to his powers and weakened the hunger for control he so desperately craved back when everyone was alive, and it brings back a side of him he thought he would never see again, a side that feels human. It hurts, feeling like this again, even if temporarily– the guilty feeling of destroying everything and everyone he once loved keeps him awake at night, eating him from the inside– but he doesn’t wish for it to go away, and finds himself dreading the day his powers and godhood will be back. He knows it’s inevitable– once you turn into a god, you can’t turn back to what you once were. And so he starts writing; to make sure he doesn’t forget again who he truly is, what it feels like to be vulnerable and human. He writes about his memories and he writes about history, about that time when he met Karl for the first time back when he was named Cornelius, about his first encounter with Puffy, about George and Sapnap- he writes, and writes again.   
In self-indulgence, he lets himself think about another universe, a better one, and he writes about it too. He tells the story of a loyal friend and protector of pets, he writes about a beautiful and kind king who ruled fairly and who was loved by his people.   
But even in this, Dream makes his friends die– because it is bound to happen someday, even in fiction. After all, he is an immortal god, doomed to see everyone he loves die or leave; he does not get his happy ending, and he learned to stop chasing it a long time ago.

***

There’s not much left of the community house, (to be fair, there’s not much left of anything) but Dream makes it his home. He doesn’t dare build it again– he had tried, at first, but the guilt was too much, and it felt wrong, doing it after all he had done. It’s not like he needs a house anyway, so he keeps it as he found it and sleeps under the stars, and when it rains he hides under a part of the roof that has yet to fell.   
  
He doesn’t like when it rains. The sound of it on the remnants of the community house’s floor reminds him of Puffy’s tears hitting the ground of his cell, when she first came to visit him in the prison. He remembers this moment well, and hates himself for it– he hadn’t looked up, back then, ashamed of hurting her and afraid to see the irreversible damage he had done in her eyes (it had been hard, fighting against the urge to cry and beg for forgiveness so she could stay by his side; now, he’s glad to have succeeded in making her hate him, because not only he did not deserve forgiveness, but also because saying he was sorry would have been a lie and manipulating her was a line he never wanted to cross). 

But it’s not only the rain; everything reminds him of the people he once loved– but they are dead and will not come back as ghosts.  
Sometimes, it feels like they do– sometimes, when Dream is sitting quietly with George’s goggles, Sapnap’s bandana and Puffy’s hat against him, it feels like Sapnap and George are here with him, silently judging him, haunting him for all the pain he put them through. Sometimes, when he lets his guard down, the forest wind catches him by surprise by sounding like Tommy's laugh. He doesn't like to think about that. (He doesn’t like to think about Tommy in general, his mind always coming back to his first visit to the prison. Tommy's words still haunt him to this day, and if he closes his eyes, it's like his ghost is here in front of him, looking down at him and asking him again in his insufferable voice _Who do you miss the most, Dream ?_. He hadn't replied then– and he will not reply to it now, simply because there's no answer to that question. Dream lost so many things, lost so many of his friends, of what used to make him happy, of what used to make him himself. How can he look back upon his past now and choose what he misses the most ? It’s impossible, and so he doesn’t waste time thinking about it- he knows, deep down, that he misses everything.)

There are days better than others; days where he goes hunting and it feels like his friends are by his side again, laughing and competing against each other to see who can hunt the best; but the warm feeling he gets when it happens doesn’t last long, soon replaced with the heavy weight of culpability. And it’s too late to make things right, now. They are dead, and these ghosts are nothing but illusions of his mind. So he goes back to the community house, and holds the last remnants of his friends close to him.   
There, in the middle of his home, Dream is nothing but the memories of the ghosts he once knew ; he is not the god he used to be but he is not the man he once was either.   


There, in the middle of his home, he is everyone he has ever loved and nothing at the same time. 

***

  
More than often, Dream finds himself thinking about the past and wishing to go back to a time where he was truly happy, before his hunger for control became too much– he thinks about an alternative universe where he asked for help and where things went better for everyone.   
He likes to pretend that a happy ending for him is hopeless and that after all the wrongs he did, he can’t do right now- but the more time goes by, the harder it gets to ignore the want to make it right again.   
  
Because there is a solution to all this misery, and it’s a simple one, a solution that comes in the form of Karl Jacobs. Because Dream might not have been in the prison at the time the nukes were launched, but Karl had been– and the prison is undamaged and there’s no way the time traveler died or lost his ability in the safety of his prison cell.   
  
But going to meet him would mean admitting his defeat; accept that he failed, that he had truly lost everyone he loved. Seeing Karl again, after ignoring his existence for so long, would mean facing the fact that maybe this isn’t the first time it happened, that maybe Dream is cursed to destroy everything that makes him happy, no matter the timeline or the alternative universe he exists in. Seeing Karl again– Karl, the man who was once his friend, the man he put in prison because Dream was afraid of him knowing too much– would mean having to ask him to do one last travel, and Dream doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to do that, to ask for more when he’s already taken so much, to try getting a happy ending he does not deserve. 

In the end, Dream chooses to go. He doesn’t know how long Karl has before running out of food in there, and he can feel himself losing his humanity again the more days goes by– he might be doomed to live in this lonely world now, but if he has a chance to make it right for the people he loves and for himself by freeing Karl, he will take it. He just hopes Karl will be able to make it. 

Later, when he enters the cell, Karl doesn't look surprised to see him, and Dream doesn't need him to talk to know that this isn't the first time this scenario happened. It's not surprising, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt; now, he can only hope for this to be the last time to happen, even if he doesn’t quite believe it.

***

There’s a man in green standing in front of him; he has a pirate hat on his head and a pair of goggles hanging around his neck, with half of a broken mask covering his face. He seems familiar, and it takes Karl a while to remember that this is Dream– he doesn’t know if he can blame that on his memory loss, or if it’s because Dream looks so different, without his mask covering his whole face.   


His stomach drops when he sees the bandana tied to Dream’s wrist– it looks so familiar, but Karl can’t put a memory on it, so he assumes that it’s only one thing he forgot, among many others.   
(He would cry about it, if only he hadn’t gotten used to it– he doesn’t remember much of the past, and there are days where his memory is better, but it doesn’t change the fact that Karl is now haunted by voices he knows but doesn’t recognize. And he would try to remember by reading all the books keeping him company in his cell, but they aren’t finished, are too confusing– it tells him about people like Quackity and Sapnap, both of them being familiar names without faces.) 

Something about this situation feels familiar, and Karl thinks it might not be the first time it happened; he remembers reading about Dream asking him to go back in time once or twice in one of his diaries. There’s still something unnerving about all of this, and it might be because of how Dream is acting, so gentle in his request, like he expects Karl to be mad at him.   
And maybe Karl should be– there’s something deep inside him that tells him to scream and shout at the man standing in front of him, but Karl is too tired to do so. He’s been stuck here for so long, and he is finally free to go– he will not fight the man who freed him, even if it’s the same one who put him there in the first place.

He doesn’t need to think too long before accepting Dream’s request; this place is destroyed and Karl doesn’t wish to spend the rest of his life in a dead world with only Dream for company. Still, he doesn’t leave right away; he takes the time to read his diaries again, and Dream lets him read the one he wrote and tells him about what he needs to know. There’s no way to say if he’s telling the truth, and Karl doesn’t believe everything he says, but it’s nice to hear about people he forgot about from another person other than himself. 

Then comes the day where he has to leave, and against all expectations, Karl finds himself hesitating. He looks up at Dream, who stands by his side, maskless. There is a lot he wants to say, now that his memory is a little bit better– and most of them aren’t good things. But this man in front of him is not the friend he once had, nor is he the monster responsible for the chaos in his life. This man in front of him is nothing but a broken god, doomed to be alone for the rest of his life, full of regret and guilt. And so, in that instant, Karl hesitates. 

“You could come with me, if you want.” 

It’s barely a murmur, barely audible because of the wind. Dream smiles at him, and it hurts a little, to think that the first and only time he saw the man who used to be his friend smile is under these circumstances. Karl takes the time to look at him so he doesn’t forget it, because this smile is nothing like the one on his mask, fake, frozen and threatening– this one is of chapped lips and scarred skin, small and soft and a little broken. This one is sincere. 

“I think we both know it’s for the better if I stay here.”

Karl doesn’t try to argue at that, and closes his bag before standing up and taking a deep breath. He is not as strong as he used to be, and traveling this far back will cost a lot of effort; he would be lucky to survive it and remember everything. This will be his last travel. 

“Goodbye, Dream. I hope we never meet again.” He says, because it’s the truth. He had traveled times and times again, from the future to the past, and he had always met him– under different names, different bodies, maybe– and he will be meeting him again one last time, but it will not be the same Dream that he knows now, will not be a fallen god desperate for control and power. 

“Have a safe travel, Karl Jacobs.” 

And maybe Karl should thank him for telling him who he is so he doesn’t forget it; but he doesn’t, because Dream is the reason why his memory is like that in the first place. Instead, he takes one last look at this stranger, this god– his enemy, and his old friend; before he turns around and leaves.

There is a new life waiting for him and he will make the best of it.

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually the most words i've written for a story in years, so i'm proud of myself :] even though i dont really like the beginning ? i feel like i could have done better but oh well fhdjdd hope you enjoyed (and if you did dont hesitate to leave kudos and comments <3)


End file.
